Mike S

weren't we kind of using a mix of marking systems last night anyway? Three chelsea players were definitely being man-marked for the first goal as opposed to the system we used to use with 8 players marking zones. Blame man-marking.

That's how I saw it too

Insua Agger Keane

The team as a whole lost their focus after the sending off. It's stupid to blame someone not even at the game for this, although plenty are of course. Up until then we were very good. Insua was superb.

at the top or near to it, yes

maybe it's just me but I reckon the second half of the season will be pretty similar to the first

heh nice backtrack. do you not reckon we should change our cbs for arsenal then?

I don't agree, we didn't stop battering them at 2-2, it was more that after about 70 minutes we ran out of steam and ideas. I agree with most of this, particularly about Gerrard - that was his best performance for a couple of months. If anything Hull were tighter on Xabi than Gerrard, and he coped with it better than Gerrard has done recently. ABout the subs, yes they should have been made earlier but I can see the reason for the specific changes - the formation had been pretty effective and Lucas is much more accustomed to making runs into the box than Mascherano. I think it was more a dedication to our plan than anything to do with Keane, but like you say 60-70 minutes rather than 87 would have made more sense

Gerrard Alonso Hyypia

Kuyt Alonso Riera

that was was aurelio

Riera Alonso Torres

Kuyt Alonso Gerrard

maybe agree, although he played okay yesterday totally disagree. For a start and it's been said many times by others, his best season so far was his second season. Also, I think he's played well this season, apart from the boro match. I thought he played fine yesterday apart from some poor shooting and set pieces, pretty similar to Gerrard really.

I thought we played okay overall, just let down by poor set pieces and finishing. Fullbacks played well, especially Arbeloa who is in excellent form at the moment, Alonso and Gerrard played well generally but their shooting (apart from one from alonso) was terrible. Wide men not bad either, the only area of the team which is really letting us down at the moment is our forwards.

they won't sacrifice Senna for fabregas, they'd get overrun physically. Senna did some pretty good work today. Xavi's a good player and quite hard to drop but Fabregas must be pretty close to taking his place

Torres Hyypia Gerrard

Clichy and Cole struggled against Kuyt in recent games. THat said fullbacks don't often come up against big physical wide players

our comeback started with Rafa moving yossi behind crouch and the ponytail out left

he was excellent, man of the match by a distance. You'd think that he's in contention for wednesday now, at least ahead of yossi in the pecking order.

alonso skrtel kuyt

Alonso. Lucas was very good yesterday (and Alonso was awful in his little cameo) but he struggles against strong physical teams. Whereas Alonso is struggles against pace but is much stronger and more suited to the physcial battle.

pennant lucas reina

gerrard alonso lucas